Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Russian Anarchist Murdered

Our friend and comrade Skat was murdered today in Moscow, shot to head by an assassin. Assassin was not after her - he was after advocate Stanislav Markelov, another good friend and comrade. We do not know who was there to kill Stas - it could be associates of some war criminals he put to prison, it could be connected to some corporate crimes, it could be Nazis, many of whom Stas put to prison as well. List of achievements of Stas is so long, that it will take a couple of days to gather all of them to a necrology - and list of his enemies is even longer. But we know for sure, that Nastya had a bad luck of being in a wrong place in wrong time. Assassin shot her to head as well, either to eliminate a witness, or in order to escape - some witnesses have stated that Nastya attempted to arrest assassin. Stas died in place, Nastya died in hospital few hours afterwards.Nastya was studying in evening line of journalist faculty of Moscow State University. She worked a while in "Izvestiya", but left and worked as a freelancer. During last few months she wrote to critical paper "Novaya Gazeta", mostly about far right. Nastya was an anarchist and was involved in numerous activist projects. She was involved in anti-repression issues, such as solidarity actions in Moscow for repressed French activists Ivan and Bruno, and later last year in solidarity work for Tarnac 9. Last year she was actively involved in attempts to defense a dormitory in Yasniy Passage, inhabited by refugees from conflict regions of Caucasus, against violent takeover of the premises by UFSIN (Administration of Federal Service for Execution of Punishment, that is Russian federal prison administration). Nastya was arrested in that action. Nastya also joined protest camp of Rainbow Keepers last summer in Sasovo of Ryazan region, and campaign against police brutality in spring of 2008. She also traveled to European social forum in Malmö in September 2008. She was co-organising alternative media section in Russian conference Anticapitalism-2008. Nastya also helped in work with latest issue #30 of Avtonom-journal. She joined Autonomous Action a day before she got murdered. Inside the movement, Nastya got well along with everyone. Nastya was into physical sports such as jumping with a parachute and she was also well trained in martial arts. She never went around unarmed, but her knife was not a match against a gun. Nastya was a positive person of exceptional spirit. She will be missed by parents, friends and comrades from all around Russia and Ukraine. She was from Sevastopol, and is likely to be buried there.

UPDATE

Today, Jan 20, four hundred anarchists gathered at the murder site in Moscow and 200 of them held an "illegal" demonstration in the streets against the assassination. One hundred anarchists in St. Petersburg and a thousand people of varied political affiliations in Grozny demonstrated as well.

No it is not. True enough, in the 1890's a few mis-guided individuals on the fringes of anarchism did assassinate a couple of presidents and kings but this has never been seen as an acceptable practice by the overwhelming majority of the movement. I will tell you who has found it so though, cold war liberals with the CIA, Stalinists through the KGB, the Mossad and of course, fascists everywhere. Funny though that anarchists are the ones to get tarred with the "assassin" brush!